Officials have recovered 50 bodies, including 36 school children, from the volta lake where an overloaded boat capsized last week.

Police say the accident occurred last Thursday off the remote Amevloikope Island, about 300 kilometres north-east of the capital, Accra. Only two students have been identified.

Forty-eight other corpses have been buried in a mass grave at Amevloikope.

A police official says 34 people had been rescued from the waters of the Volta Lake.

Most of the passengers were school students travelling home to a nearby village for the holidays.